Had a grand time the other night watching two-thirds of a hockey game. The other third I was not so grand, seeing as how I spent it in a line at the concessions stand.

Basically, I spent the entire second period (two goals, three fights and three penalties) in line to get a Coke.

For those of you who are not in the know, hockey is played in three periods of 20 minutes each. And these are sports minutes, not real life minutes, which means they can be up to 30 times longer than minutes anywhere else. This explains why the last two minutes of an NBA game take about an hour to play.

Do the math and I spent 30 minutes of my life waiting to get refreshed.

And why did it take so long?

Because everyone else in the line was a moron.

I’m talking about people who would make it to the front of the line and then decide they needed to start studying the menu. Never mind that they had half an hour to do while THEY were waiting. Oh, no. They had all been too busy talking on their cell phones and texting people back in the arena, or rolling their eyes and sighing noisily while complaining about the slow service.

So they get to the front of the line and start reading the menu. Slowly. Out loud. This, too, takes far longer than it should, seeing as how the bill of fare is what you might call limited: Pre-fab pizza, microwave-thawed pretzels, vintage popcorn, cardboard nachos with library paste cheese sauce, beer, wine, pop and water. How anyone can stretch this into three minutes of reading (with lips moving) is beyond me, but they do.

The order is finally made (dinner for two, which means four of everything on the menu) and delivered fairly quickly. I want to make that point clear: The concession workers that I saw were friendly and efficient. No blame there.

Comes time to pay. Is this a fast, easy cash transaction? Of course not. This will be paid in plastic, which means another several minutes lost to rooting around in wallets and purses looking for credit cards. And then another few putting things back in their places again. After which, the person notices that he or she is going to need considerable help getting all this snacky goodness back into the area and so whips out a cell phone to call in reinforcements – all while standing at the head of the line so as to best hold things up.

And then the next person does precisely the same thing.

Result? You miss the goals and fistfights, and all the players are so dog-bone tired by the time you get back to your seat that the third period is really just a skate-around. It’s enough to make you buy Pacers tickets.

Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But it’s enough to make you re-think the whole business of going out, with all its attendant headaches, from finding a place to park to chasing squatters out of your seats to wasting time in lines, when you could just as well stay home and have your grand time and your hockey moron-free.